Rinchi
TechInAfrica – A Kenya-based innovation hub, iHub announced its partnership with a Bahamian and Kenyan Technology company, Raise. The announcement made at the ALN Africa Investment Conference in Dubai on November 7 – 8, 2018.
Through the partnership, both companies will work together on digitizing all of Raise’s company assets, allowing iHub to be the first accelerator in Africa to do such a step. Moreover, it is also the first publicized of a tokenized asset on the continent.
During the announcing event, the CEO of Raise, Marvin Coleby also demonstrated the Raise platform that is provided for critical commercial and policy topics with the aims to drive investment in Africa.
Speaking about their partnership with Raise, the Managing Director of iHub, Nekesa Were said, “iHub is committed to making it easier for our community of start-ups and entrepreneurs to raise the capital they need to grow their business. The Raise platform promises to radically transform how businesses raise money and we hope this will lead the way for more start-ups in our community to follow suit.”
“The iHub has worked with 300+ startups, in various sectors including Fintech, Agritech, Edutech, AI & IoT, health, infrastructure, logistics, and many others,” Were added, “and has supported businesses through grants funding totaling more than USD 300 000. The startups in iHub’s portfolio have raised over USD 40 million in early and growth stage financing, and a further USD 1 million in grants. The number of jobs that have been created has exceeded 40,000 in the last five years. With an average annual revenue of USD 350,000, the iHub startups have an economic impact of more than USD 104 million. We look forward to working with Raise to bring further value to the iHub community.”
Meanwhile, the CEO of Raise, Coleby said, “Raise aims to make it easier to digitally manage and trade corporate assets by providing a compliant way to securitize assets using blockchain technologies. We’re excited to partner with iHub to create their security tokens and look forward to the future of creating more accessible and liquid private markets for investors with the use of blockchain-based digital securities in frontier markets.”
its company assets – making iHub the first tech accelerator to take such a step in Africa, and this partnership the first publicized instance of a tokenized asset on the continent.
Raise CEO and co-founder Marvin Coleby also demonstrated the platform at the event, which serves to provide a platform for dialogue on critical commercial and policy topics with the objective of spurring investment into Africa. It draws on speakers from ALN’s network of leading corporate law firms in 16 African jurisdictions as well as key policy and investment organizations like the US Trade and Development Agency, Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Brenthurst Foundation.
“It makes absolute sense for iHub to take this step as it has been a major catalyst for regional technology innovation in East Africa, nurturing one of the most vibrant innovations and entrepreneurship ecosystems on the Continent. iHub aims to create an environment of trust and experimentation and in this case, it is leading from the front by securitizing its assets on blockchain technology,” Coleby concluded.
